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Tap the kegs and round up the groupies – two of the biggest champions of rock and roll excess will take the same stage for the first time later this month. Spinal Tap and Tenacious D will play the House of Blues in West Hollywood on December 20, a sure-to-be-memorable evening that will bring together such classic anthems as “F– Her Gently” and “Sex Farm.” The show is a benefit for the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation, according to the D’s spokesperson. Mitochondrial diseases are hereditary disorders that affect a cell’s ability to produce life-sustaining energy. The UMDF’s mission is “to… Read more »

VH1 has removed a Mariah Carey-mocking segment of its My Music Awards rebroadcast. According to the network, the editing decision was made because of re-airing time constraints, but the show’s producer and the segment’s writer cite pressure from Carey’s representatives as the reason. The awards show – which took place Sunday, December 2nd, at Los Angeles’ Shrine Auditorium – included writer/comedian (and former Daily Show correspondent) Brian Unger’s “Music 2001: What The Hell Was That?” interludes, in which he lampooned Carey, as well as Michael Jackson, Marlon Brando, Wayne Newton and others. Unger’s Carey cracks targeted a July 19, 2001… Read more »

Recipients of the Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award and Trustees Awards were announced today by Michael Greene, President/CEO of the Recording Academy. Pianist and band leader Count Basie and recording artists Perry Como, Rosemary Clooney, Al Green, and Joni Mitchell will receive Lifetime Achievement Awards. Engineer/producer Tom Dowd and original rock disc jockey Alan Freed will be honored with Trustees Awards. Formal acknowledgment of the awards will be made in conjunction with the 44th Annual GRAMMY ® Awards ceremony, which willbe held at Los Angeles’ Staples Center on Wednesday, Feb. 27. The show will be a prime-time television special on… Read more »

British rock band the Cure mounted a farewell tour last year to promote what it billed as its last album, and had such a blast playing for more than half a million people in North America and Europe that it now hopes to return to the road in 2002. Retirement at age 42 just never suited the Cure’s leader, singer/guitarist Robert Smith, whose gloomy songs about death and despair have transfixed fans since the Cure released its first single in 1978. “The swan song was actually me… saying the group’s going to end,” Smith told Reuters in a recent interview.… Read more »

America Online, the Internet service of AOL Time Warner Inc., said on Tuesday it introduced a test version of the long-promised MusicNet music subscription service and expects a full launch of the service next month. The service, which was established by three of the world’s largest record labels – AOL Time Warner’s Warner Music Group, Bertelsmann AG’s BMG Entertainment, and EMI Group Plc, – along with Internet media delivery service RealNetworks Inc., was also launched last week on RealNetworks through its RealOne service. Similar to RealNetworks’ offering, subscribers to America Online, the world’s largest Internet service provider, will be able… Read more »

If there’s an upside to Poison bassist Bobby Dall’s recent emergency back surgery, it’s that the hair metal kings have had time off the road to write their next album. Drummer Rikki Rockett said Sunday at the My VH1 Music Awards that the band has written and finished pre-production on its seventh studio album and plans to enter a Los Angeles studio next week. “The songs are awesome,” Rockett said. “I really, really love these songs. It’s fuel-injected hard rock Poison stuff. I think people really need it. And I really need it. A lot of times you listen to… Read more »

Napster, Inc. has licensed the entire catalog from influential independent record label Matador Records for its upcoming membership-based file-sharing service. The deal, which also covers future Matador Records releases, contributes significantly to the quality music that will be available for sharing through the new Napster service. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed. Matador Records is currently home to premier indie artists including Belle & Sebastian, Stephen Malkmus, The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Yo La Tengo, Cat Power, Mogwai and Cornelius. Napster will compensate these and all other artists, songwriters and rights holders whose music is made available through… Read more »

XM Satellite Radio, the leading satellite radio provider, capped its national launch today with celebrations in New York and Seattle in a coast-to-coast culmination of XM’s final 25-city “Power of X” “listen and ride” rollout tour. XM broadcast live today from blues legend B.B. King’s club in New York, where XM presented jazz great Wynton Marsalis with the first New York XM radio as an early holiday gift, and from the Experience Music Project in Seattle, where XM presented the museum with the first Seattle XM radio. The radios can enable any car or home stereo to receive XM’s 100… Read more »

Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Carole King was honored with a Heroes Award by the New York chapter of the Recording Academy at the sixth Annual New York Heroes Awards on Tuesday evening (December 4). In addition to King, the gala dinner at the Roosevelt Hotel-sponsored by music-performing rights organization Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI)-paid tribute to Russell Simmons, Kiss, and Linda Moran, the president of the Songwriters Hall Of Fame. Singer-songwriter and actor Dominic Chianese (The Sopranos) hosted the event, and he performed a touching version of “Typical New Yorker” from his recently released album, Hits. Matchbox Twenty frontman Rob Thomas presented King… Read more »

There’s little cheer at the beginning of the holiday sales season. With the exception of the new releases and Christmas discs from Barbra Streisand and Mannheim Steamroller, every album in the top 50 had fewer sales in the week ending Dec. 2 than the week before, according to SoundScan figures issued Wednesday. Creed’s “Weathered” (Wind-Up) continues to hold the top spot with second-week sales of 417,000 units, a 53% drop. For the rest of the holdovers in the top five, “Now That’s What I Call Music Vol. 8” (Virgin) fell 46% to 353,000 units; Garth Brooks’ “Scarecrow” (Capitol Nashville) slid… Read more »